Space Flight: The Application of Orbital Mechanics

Nasa worker: i studied for years to know everything about apoapsis and periapsis KSP players: p a t h e t i c

I graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering (astrodynamics focus), and this 36 minute video is just as useful as the entirety of my Orbital Mechanics class was ALL semester, and there wasn't any homework! 😂😂

I need to do rendezvous in Kerbal Space Program, i know i could watch a practice tutorial, but i prefer to learn orbital mechanics lol

This video coincidentally started playing the first time I got to orbit in KSP. It was the most epic thing I have ever experienced.

This video: Perigee and Apogee KSP intellectuals: Periapsis and Apoapsis.

Buzz Aldrin has a doctorate in orbital mechanics from MIT. There was a really good reason he was picked for Apollo!

Gotta love KSP for inspiring us to learn more

This was one of the best videos I've ever seen. Educational on a very technically challenging subject and yet explained in a simple way that's easily understood. Thank you NASA!

It's amazing what you can find on the internet these days. In a good way , not the weird way guys , get your minds out of the gutter !

If YouTube had been around in the 1990s I would have aced my math and physics exams!

KSP and Orbiter have taught me more about astrophysics and orbital mechanics than any educational insitiution.

Really refreshing video, don't understand why the new American videos or documentaries can't match this quality and depth of information

This is one of the most enjoyable videos I've ever seen.

I love how knowledge is available literally everywhere now. The best part of the Humanity's space program is how it's for the betterment of our civilization as a whole.

Interesting, and hypnotic music :) I like this older American accent, not like these new 'documentaries' where the guy sounds like hes commentating WWF wrestling explains things in a manner as for a 5 year old. Wish they made more of this type of stuff instead :(

Well I just learned about a dozen new words.

What a great tutorial from 1989 ! I mean now a days we hear every word of this video in the launch commentary. This video helped me to understand these much better.

Orbital rendezvous was made possible by Buzz Aldrin. He understood the physics behind it. He wrote his doctoral thesis on it. Early on in the Gemini program, they tried to rendezvous with the Titan-II second stage booster, but failed. They would do a burn to add velocity and found themselves getting farther away from the booster! They didn't realize that by adding energy to the orbit that the semi-major axis INCREASED and they went higher and actually slowed down with respect to the booster. Aldrin calculated that you have to decrease the orbital energy, drop into a LOWER orbit, then you travel faster than a higher orbit object! Then once you are almost under it, you add energy back to raise your orbit to the booster's orbit and then rendezvous!!! This was one of two major things that Aldrin contributed to the space program that got us to the moon. The other was putting a capsule under water and showing everyone how to work in zero G!

Though it's a little dated, it's incredibly informative. Admittedly I got a little misty-eyed seeing the video clips of the Space Shuttle.

For anyone who wants to get a basic understanding of how orbits work, this is a good video. Thank you